Marc didn’t react. “Where is the Duke?”

Albert grinned. “Somewhere you’ll never find him.”

“He doesn’t know,” Vincent said. “Angoulême wouldn’t trust his plans to a turncoat commoner. Those human recruits bending knee to Roland probably know as much.”

“Maybe they do and maybe they don’t,” Albert responded. “But if you think to get the information by torturing it out of me, you’re wrong. I. Won’t. Tell. I’m a dead man as it is.”

Whether he’d given an oath to the Duke or was that convinced of his own fortitude in the face of torture, he meant what he said. He was as bound to tell the truth as any of them. Part of me wanted to tell them to let him die, but the cost of my earlier cruelty was fresh in my mind. Such a slippery slope it was to become cavalier with life just because the life in question was that of my enemy. It was the attitude of Thibault and Angoulême, and if I was no different, how could I claim to be better?

My hand went to the two remaining perfume bottles in my satchel, and with a sigh, I gave Marc a little nudge with my elbow. “What about for the chance to live?”

The injured troll’s eyes bulged with recognition. “You.” His face contorted with effort. But Albert was not Anaïs or Tristan, and the iron piercing his body kept him in check.

“That’s the offer,” I said. “Tell us where the Duke is hiding, and I’ll save your life.” I’d save it anyway, even if was for only as long as it took for him to go to trial for his actions. “I’ll even heal you first as a token of goodwill.”

Hope flashed across his face and I knew I’d offered the one thing that would cause him to betray the Duke. But my elation lasted only for a second, then he lifted his head and drove it down on the spike beneath it.

I clapped a hand over my mouth, wanting to turn away from the sight but forcing myself to bear witness to this latest victim of my actions.

“Angoulême wouldn’t have taken a traitor into the fold without oaths that ensured his loyalty,” Marc said, resting a hand on my shoulder. “He was a dead man regardless.”

I turned out of his grip and walked some distance away before resting my forehead against a tree, the frozen sap digging into my skin. Chris’s orders to remove the spikes and bury the body in the pit reached my ears but barely registered.

Snow crunched behind me. “Did you know him?” Joss asked.

I gave a slight nod.

“Was he a… friend?”

“No.” I turned my head, watching her squish a little pattern into the snow with the toe of her boot, her cheeks pinched in from where she was biting them with her teeth. “You were the other rider.”

Joss nodded without lifting her head. “They needed someone light who could ride fast, and after we saw what he’d done to Nomeny, everyone else was too afraid.”